English | Iranian
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My Mum is English, born and raised in England. My Dad is from Iran, born in Tabriz and raised in Tehran. He actually only came to the UK to study in the late 70s, but unfortunately was unable to return to Iran since. While he was here, the 1979 revolution happened over there. Since he’s not Muslim, it wasn’t really the right environment for him to return to. The combination of cultures clashed at times growing up, with my parents’ differing views on things such as marriage and religion. I think it has been a learning curve for both, but especially my Dad who has had to adapt to a Western culture and also raise children in one (though he’s done an awesome job). I definitely connect to different parts of each culture for different things. Culture revolves around food, they live for feeding people, hosting people, getting the family together etc. Persian cooking takes a long time and a lot of patience, so we normally make it in quantities to feed the multitudes. My whole relationship with food changed a few years ago when I became a vegetarian, for environmental and animal welfare reasons. Persian culture does NOT recognise vegetarianism, and my Dad looked like he might cry when I told him. Some of my other relatives on his side have taken it as a personal challenge to convert me back to eating meat. For a while I actively avoided cooking Persian cuisine because I couldn’t work out how to make it well without meat and going to Persian restaurants was limited for me. More recently I’ve found a renewed zeal, with the boom in vegetarian/veganism, and even went to a Middle Eastern vegetarian cooking class. I think this is another example of where East meets West and adapting to suit the two. I don’t speak Farsi, and this is something I wish my parents had pushed harder with. This meant that growing up it has been difficult for me to communicate with older relatives, particularly my paternal grandparents who didn’t speak English. I’ll get there one day! If I were to be born again, I honestly wouldn’t change a thing.
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